1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an automatic ticket-examining apparatus capable of dealing with, for example, both magnetic tickets and radio tickets.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent railroads, to save labor in punching, examining, or collecting tickets at the gates, automatic ticket-examining equipment has been installed at the entrances and exits of stations. The equipment is designed to take in passengers' magnetic tickets (including commuter passes) to check for their validity and, if it is found that the ticket is invalid, prohibit the passenger from entering or leaving the station.
This type of automatic ticket-examining apparatus determines whether or not the passenger is allowed to pass on the basis of the encoded ticket information magnetically recorded on the ticket inserted in the slot when he or she passes through the ticket gate for entering or leaving the station or transferring.
An automatic ticket-examining apparatus has been developed which receives the ticket information from the tickets by radio without taking them in one by one and on the basis of the information received, determines whether or not the passengers are allowed to pass through the ticket gate.
Another automatic ticket-examining apparatus has been proposed which can handle both magnetic tickets on which the encoded ticket information is magnetically recorded and radio tickets capable of transmitting the ticket information by radio and provide automatic ticket examination of both types of tickets. In the automatic ticket-examining apparatus dealing with both magnetic and radio tickets, the processing method must be changed depending on which type of ticket the passenger passing through the gate has.
Conventional automatic ticket-examining equipment capable of dealing with both magnetic and radio tickets, however, has a problem: when a passenger with a magnetic ticket is immediately followed by a passenger with a radio ticket or vice versa, an error can take place in processing the tickets.
For example, it is assumed that a passenger with a magnetic ticket is immediately followed by a passenger with a radio ticket. If the radio ticket is sensed immediately before the magnetic ticket is inserted in the automatic ticket-examining apparatus, the apparatus will determine erroneously that the passenger with the radio ticket is before the passenger with the magnetic ticket.
Similarly, in a case where a passenger with a radio ticket is immediately followed by a passenger with a magnetic ticket, if the magnetic ticket is inserted in the automatic ticket-examining apparatus before the ticket information on the radio ticket has been read, the magnetic ticket is processed first. This is because the slot shutter for magnetic tickets cannot be closed until the ticket information on the radio ticket has been read properly.
In such cases, although a passenger can pass through the gate unconditionally, the immediately following passenger who is a real owner of the actually processed ticket cannot pass through the gate.
Further, there may a case where by unintentionally bringing a radio ticket close to the automatic ticket-examining apparatus, the electromagnetic wave from the ticket can be sensed by the apparatus. As a result, the apparatus can operate erroneously or write unnecessary data onto the radio ticket.